On Mon, 28 May 2001, Hellen Paskaleva wrote:
Steve: <The first point is how do shields work?>
If the shields are electromagnetic field, that would explain their interaction with the electrically charged plasma bolts. I have to think a bit more about the mere blasters, though, because they are electrically neutral.
Plasma bolts presumably consist of magnetically confined plasma. Thus, a suitably configured electromagnetic field should shield the ship from all -- or nearly all -- of the plasma bolt. Such shileds could be defeated either by sufficiently powerful plasm bolts, or by overloading the shield mechanism with repeated attacks. (At least some of the particles and energy of the plasm bolt will be transmitted along the magnetic field lines to the shield generating mechanism. The mechanism is doubtless designed to be protected against this, but no protection is perfect.)
The neutron blasters, firing a neutral beam, would pass straight through these shields, no problem. Thus you can fire out while the shields are operating. Similarly, photon beams would be unaffected by the shields.
When ones opponent also has neatron blasters, it's probably time to check the small print on the warranty.
It is possible, that the shields work the same way - they allow the ship's lasers (with a particular frequency) to fire *out*, but stop everything else (with any other frequency) from penetrating *in*. That could be a reason why every time Vila needed to "clear blasters for firing" manually - for security reasons the "home" frequency has to be changed often.
But then you wouldn't be able to see out.
I would love to see this discussion as a panel at the Redemption'03.
Good idea.
Iain